Students are often encouraged to explain recently-taught information to others to enhance their learning in various settings including face-to-face in the classroom, through text, or in educational videos. However, nearly all studies on the impact of explaining things to others have focused on the effects of explaining to a less-knowledgeable…

This study first validates a survey on self-regulated vocabulary learning strategies. It then examines the effects on the acquisition of new second language (L2) words from a reading text of three word-focused exercise conditions: reading + marginal glosses, reading + gap-fill and reading + sentence writing. It also evaluates the extent to which…

While the relationship between language experience and foreign language aptitude (FLA) has been studied extensively, little is known about the underlying intermediate link between them. This study investigates whether multilingual learning experience is correlated with FLA and whether working memory (WM) mediates this relationship. A total of 93…

Recent second language (L2) reading studies have examined how characteristics of an individual learner and word-specific linguistic properties jointly predict successful L2 word-meaning inference, i.e., a learner's ability to guess the meaning of an unknown word. Semantic transparency is one such word-specific property. Each constituent morpheme…

This paper presents the results of a retrospective study that investigates the cognitive effects of learning a foreign language in late adulthood. The learner group, consisting of 21 L1 Chinese speakers who have been learning to read Arabic for 2 years and 4 months, were compared to the matched group on their performance on a series of cognitive…

This study aimed to examine incidental learning of multiword expressions (MWEs) from bilingual captioned videos among language minority students. The participants consisted of 403 language minority university students enrolled in the Preparatory Year Programme (PYP) in the Southern part of China. The study evaluated participants' vocabulary…

This study investigates the effects of three word-focused exercise conditions on vocabulary learning. The exercises were developed based on the involvement load hypothesis. This study also explores how individual differences (e.g. second-language English proficiency level and working memory) affect vocabulary learning outcomes. A total of 180…

This experiment employed viewing time methods to investigate the effects of individual differences in visuospatial working memory (VWM) on the processing of older adults' bridging inferences in the understanding of visual narratives. The results showed that older adults could make bridging inferences in visual narrative processing, and that VWM…

A growing number of studies have focused on uncovering linguistic and cognitive skills predictive of reading comprehension. Vocabulary knowledge (VK) and morphological awareness (MA) are two important linguistic variables for reading comprehension. In contrast, working memory (WM) is an essential cognitive variable for reading comprehension. The…

An increasing number of adults learn more than one foreign language simultaneously. While the cognitive benefits of using multiple languages from birth have been studied extensively, little is known about possible cognitive benefits of learning multiple languages simultaneously in adulthood. Among the cognitive abilities which play a role in…

Despite the importance that learners must place on using prosody appropriately in EIL interaction, pragmatic functions of prosody have been largely disregarded in teaching materials and classroom instruction (Nikolic, 2018). Moreover, with a recent change in classroom paradigms instigated by the global development of educational technologies and…

This study examines the referential context effect on second-language relative clause ambiguity resolution by proficient L1 Chinese learners who learn English as a foreign language (EFL) and investigates whether the ambiguity resolution process is constrained by individuals' working memory capacity (WMC). It presents a self-paced reading study and…

Background: Despite the potential of captioned videos, limited attention has been paid to the role of vocabulary knowledge (VK) and working memory (WM) in incidental vocabulary learning under different captioning conditions. Objectives: The present study aimed to bridge this gap by assessing VK and WM in incidental vocabulary learning under…

Working memory (WM) is essential to vocabulary learning. However, limited attention has been paid to young beginner learners' vocabulary development under various task conditions from the perspective of WM. This study investigates how two types of WM--complex WM and phonological short-term memory--may influence two instructional approaches (i.e.,…

The research on interpreting aptitude has focused on the abilities, skills and personal traits of individuals in order to predict their future interpreting performance. However, an important variable between the personal characteristics and success of trainee interpreters in interpreter training, which is instructional practices, is overlooked.…